I question the questioning of Obama’s lack of answering the question of patriotism

Joe Klein recounts a scene with Obama at a recent Q&A session after a speech in Pennsylvania:

I noticed it during Obama's response to a young man who remembered how the country had come together after Sept. 11 and lamented "the dangerously low levels of patriotism and pride in our country, the loss of faith in our elected officials."

Klein then tells us that it was understandable that Obama used this “to go after George W. Bush”.

What? Oh, yes, understandable in that it’s a Pavlovian response, and we certainly would not have expect anything else from Obama.

Klein records the response from Obama thusly:

"Cynicism has become the hot stock," he said, "the growth industry during the Bush Administration." He talked about the Administration's mendacity, its incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, its lack of transparency.

Isn’t the talk “about the Administration's mendacity” itself cynical?

Isn’t the talk of the Administration’s “incompetence during Hurricane Katrina” a prime example of “the loss of faith in our elected officials”?

Isn’t Obama feeding, rather than, oh, I don't know, say transcending this young man’s lamentation? Or put another way, did this young man leave this speech more or less cynical about the lack of patriotism, pride in his country and faith in government after hearing Obama answer his question?

Isn’t it Obama who is peddling cynicism as the "hot stock", "the growth industry"?

And as long as we’re using stock market terminology, isn’t Obama simply engaging in a pump and dump scheme? Can we see where he stands to profit if people cynically believe the Bush Administration is mendacious, incompetent and lacks transparency?

Why, yes. Yes We Can!

Obama speech: summary

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations for Those Who Hold the Hard Bigotry of High Dudgeon

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson on how Obama’s soft bigotry of low expectations enables the hard bigotry of Wright’s high dudgeon:

The message? Some of us are never quite responsible for what we say. ...

Instead, the entire Wright controversy evolved due to America’s failure to understand the Wright’s past and the present status of race. ...

Obama is right about one thing: We are losing yet another opportunity to talk honestly about race, to hold all Americans to the same standards of public ethics and morality, and to emphasize that no one gets a pass peddling vulgar racism, or enabling it by failing to disassociate himself from its source — not Rev. Wright, not even the eloquent, but now vapid, Barack Obama.

MORE: VDH on how Obama’s soft bigotry of low expectations enables the next round of the hard bigotry of high dudgeon:

Obama has sanctified the doctrines of moral equivalence (the private racial slight is balanced by the televised public hatred; everyone has a pastor in some ways like Wright, etc.) and contextualization (you must understand Wright's context and background; the good that he does; the protocols of the black church, etc.). The result is a lowering of the bar for the next racial outburst, since the perpetrator will immediately resort to the Obama defenses.

The noxious Gnostic Mystery of Obamianity

Mickey Kaus gives his review of Obama’s speech. When he gets to this point in the speech, he asks three very important questions.

Obama:

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity;

Kaus:

Doesn't Obama mean Rev. Wright's comments were 'not only divisive but wrong,' rather than the other way around?

Me: No! He means it exactly like that. And the answers to your next two questions take us to the promised land.

Kaus:

Isn't it worse to be wrong than "divisive"?

Me: Yes, for you and me. For Obama? No. Divisiveness is the most egregious sin.

Kaus:

Is unity the overriding virtue for Obama?

Me: YES!!!

This is exactly right.

I’m quoting myself again:

Obama wants unity. To disagree with Obama is a lack of unity. Any lack of unity is cynicism. And cynicism is as big an enemy as terrorists.

Mickey, I can only hope that your questions lead you to these answers. I believe they unlock the noxious Gnostic Mystery of Obamianity.

"One of the greatest con artists we've seen"

I email a lot of people a lot of times at NRO.

But as I mentioned to Mona Charen in an email today, racking my brain, I am having a hard time coming up with another occasion in which I have written someone with as much heartfelt gratitude as I did her.

Ms. Charen said today on the Corner:

I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we've seen.

Amen!

He has played the role of racial unifier with great skill and finesse.
But there is a great deal of evidence out there that he is anything but.

Hallelujah! Someone else is noticing.

One can have sympathy for his psychological predicament . But that sympathy certainly does not extend to electing him president of a country that I sincerely believe he does not love.

Thank you, Ms. Charen. Those thoughts mirror mine nearly exactly.

I have spent a fair amount of time and energy on the idea that Obama was not the change he spoke of or that we could believe in.

But let me reproduce here a comment I left at Tom Maguire's Just One Minute (I am not editing the comment. Apologies for some inside stuff that is not linked, or better documented -- and a warning to those for whom a little cursing might be off-putting):

Listen, I will leave it to Rick/Rich, Kyle Anne Shiver etc to go into the details of the whole Obama as Alinsky-ite thing.

I am just a poor small town BS sniffer.

And as lefty Oliver Willis quipped about Obama, Smells Like a Movement. Oh, yeah a big movement. A toilet-stopping, get-the-plunger, why-didn't-you-courtesy-flush, where-the-hell are-the-matches movement.

Obama's "fight against cynicism" is BS (yes, a movement). I've played with the whole thing for a year now. Being cute, hit and runnish with pointing out Obama cynicism in the name of ending it.

Enough.

Obama's fight against cynicism is not just mere rhetoric. It is an attempt to create for himself and aura of infallibility.

He is above the normal cynical attempt to gain power -- or cynical attempt to retain power. ::cough::bullshit::cough::

He is all about the change/hope/unity/on our way to yeswecanville.

Do you disagree with Obama?

You are cynical.

And cynicism is a threat as great as terrorists -- and is a rival greater than any Dem/Repub or Red/Blue or Lib/Conservative divide. ::cough::bullshit::cough::

The man isn't spouting platitudes because he wants everyone all lovey dovey, Oprahfied and empowered.

He wants everyone powerless.

Michelle: "[Obama] is going to demand that you shed your cyncism".

Obama wants unity. To disagree with Obama is a lack of unity. Any lack of unity is cynicism. And cynicism is as big an enemy as terrorists.

Shed your cynicism (agree with Obama) or you are a terrorist.

This man should be kept as far away from the presidency as possible.

I like to dally in humor and I don't do outrage particularly well. Also I have no delusions of wielding any more influence than being able to reach people numbered in the dozens -- maybe hundreds if lucky -- with this blog.

But I am not going to go without having this be said...quoting Ms. Charen again, with emphasis...

I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we've seen.

The only difference between myself and Ms. Charen is timing. I came to that same conclusion some time ago. That she is coming to it now is an event that brings me unrelenting joy.

Would that more people see Obama for who he is.

I Question the Timing (of Obama's forked tongue)

Dean Barnett shares a story on Obama from the Boston Globe, which includes this quote:

In July of 2004, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an "absolute obligation" to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success.

"The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of the session. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective."

That was an audaciously hopeful thing for Obama to say.

Of course, some might question him now for saying, “I’ve been against [the war in Iraq] 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8.”

Audaciously cynical.

Somewhere along the line, he lost that hopefulness, that audaciousness. Strange that becoming the change the anti-war left has been waiting for coincided with the launch of his presidential campaign.

I Question the Timing!

Obama speaks in just one tongue, but his is forked

Tom Maguire chronicles Obama's latest gyrations on Iraq.

Ever been to a tennis match, watching it from center court? You get the picture. You'd get video too, if I could find it on youtube. Instead, you get this.

From Political Radar, Obama said yesterday:

A war that should have never been authorized, a war that should have never been waged. I've been against it 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8. And I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don't be confused.

I appreciate Obama trying to disabuse me of any confusion. It may be futile, however. Here is Obama in an interview on CBS:

And you pull out according to that time table, regardless of the situation? Even if there's serious sectarian violence?" CBS's Kroft asked.

"No, I always reserve as commander in chief, the right to assess the situation," Obama replied.

At least when Arafat would say one thing to one audience (Western leaders and media) and then another antipodean thing to another audience (the Palestinians), he would do so in different languages.

Obama, however, is not so burdened. He is the Mirror of Erised. He can say whatever he wants and people will believe he is saying whatever it is they want him to say.

Unless they're cynical.


UPDATE: I botched the ping pong (sorry, table tennis) link above ("you get this"), now fixed. Wait it out -- the overhead view makes it worth the wait!!!

A voice of one calling in the desert

Everyone by now is becoming familiar with Michelle Obama's view of life in America...

To recap:

• Our souls are broken in the nation.
• For the first time in her adult life she is proud of her country.
• Every woman she knows is struggling to keep her head above water.
• Her life's gotten progressively worse since she was a little girl.
• Barack will demand that we shed our cynicism, and he will never allow us to go back to our uninvolved lives.
• We live in a country that's just downright mean.
• We're a nation of cynics, sloths and complacents.
• America has declined over her lifetime.
  
  

A modern day prophetess, she is a voice of one calling in the desert -- a desolate land of immense struggle we call America.

An America in which you don't live with the audacity of hope, you just try to muster...

The Audacity of Cope

UPDATE: WELCOME Mark Steyn readers! And thank you, Mr. Steyn. You have been very gracious, indeed! (If you would like a little story of Mr. Steyn’s graciousness, you can go here, keep scrolling!)

UPDATE: Don Surber finds that the Obamas live in John Edwards's America. He points to Jack Kelly who quotes Michelle as saying: “We spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements. And summer programs… Do you know what summer camp costs?”

I honestly have no idea how she copes. Only a five-figure budget for her kids' extracurricular activities? It's audacious.

(And thank you Mr. Surber for the link!)

'Twas there that he parted in yon shady glen

Obama in December, takes the high road:

“Right now groups supporting Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are flooding Iowa and the other early states with millions of dollars in paid ads, phone calls, and mailings. Some of it is negative and even deceptive, and a lot of it is paid for by huge, unregulated contributions from special interests.” …

To give you a sense of the spending in Iowa right now, below is the most up-to-date independent expenditure information in Iowa. ...

For John Edwards
Working for Working Americans/Carpenters: $516,216.51
Alliance for a New America (SEIU): $760,801.00

Obama campaign now, takes the (Obama-described) low road:

For all its indignation, the Obama campaign doesn't mind playing it both ways when convenient. One example is the Senator's own easy relationship with spending on his behalf by organized labor. According to the Federal Election Commission, the Service Employees International Union was spending some $1.4 million to support his candidacy in Ohio and Texas, including direct mail, phone-banking and union outlays to pay for "volunteers." Meanwhile, the Fund For America, another so-called 527 group funded by George Soros and the SEIU, is funneling $400,000 to groups buying ads to attack John McCain.

I fear that Obama’s rhetoric and his actions will never meet again...on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

UPDATE: Oops, I missed the memo that it's Barack O'Bama. Huh, so he's Irish. My bad.

The talk of change that's no more than just rhetoric

Obama on the campaign trail:

That's the kind of change that's more than just rhetoric - that's change you can believe in.

It's change that won't just come from more anger at Washington or turning up the heat on Republicans. There's no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there. We don't need more heat. We need more light. I've learned in my life that you can stand firm in your principles while still reaching out to those who might not always agree with you.

Obama campaign on the warpath:

At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Politico’s story about Barack Obama’s problems winning Catholic voters went live.

Within minutes, editor Charlie Mahtesian’s phone started ringing.

The heated interaction beween Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and Politico's national political editor Saturday afternoon and evening was in many ways routine. But it was also a window into aspects of the political process outsiders do not usually see or understand.

The exchanges show the speed and ferocity with which operatives inside presidential campaigns argue even the slightest nuances of stories they believe could be damaging. They also show the hectic, on-the-fly judgments that journalists make as they try to abide by standards of fairness while pushing back against dubious spin.

Among a volley of staff members and surrogates for Obama’s campaign to call Mahtesian, the most combative was deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer.

Mahtesian, who has written about national politics for nearly two decades, said Sunday he was taken aback by Pfeiffer’s bellicose tone.

"Who are you? I've never heard of you. What's your background?" Pfeiffer
demanded to know, Mahtesian recalled. ...

But campaign reporters with Politico and other publications tell me the response was characteristic of an Obama press operation that is becoming known, as is its counterpart in the Clinton campaign, for an aggressive style.

Listen, the heated interaction was routine. The author of this Politico article states that plainly. The Obama campaign isn't acting any differently than any other campaign.

Nothing to see here, right?

Exactly. Just like every other cynical politician, Obama's talk of change is no more than just rhetoric.

UPDATE: Via Redstate we have more and direct evidence of Obama on the warpath:

It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage.

Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands.

It's the first time I ever heard him yell, and I'm trembling as I set down the phone. I sit frozen at my desk for several minutes, stunned.

That was then, this is now

Obama on the pre-campaign trail in 2006:

I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I wasnot in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test. (h/t Syl)

Obama on the campaign trail today:

"Real change isn't voting for George Bush's war in Iraq and then telling the American people it was actually a vote for more diplomacy when you start running for president," Obama said. "The title of the bill was 'A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.'

Obama sure was magnanimous as the insurgent candidate of hope back in 2006. As the frontrunner candidate of hope, he seems so much more, what's the word...oh, yes...cynicial.

Obama's change we can believe in

Obama on the campaign trail:

I have said, unlike Senator Clinton, that I would meet directly with the leadership in Iran. ...

And this—look, part of the reason it’s important for us to talk to countries we don’t like and leaders we don’t like, it’s not that I think that in a conversation with somebody like Ahmadinejad that I’m going to somehow change his mind on everything, but what we do is, we send a signal to other leadership in Iran, to the Iranian people and to the world community that we are listening and that we are willing to try to resolve conflicts peacefully.

Obama campaign providing the "yes we maybe won't":

Barack Obama does not necessarily have in mind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he says he will meet with Iran's leaders, a top Jewish proxy says."

Ahmadinejad may not be the one to meet with," U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, the top Jewish surrogate for the contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, told JTA in a recent interview. "He is not the person that ultimately controls power in Iran."

Now that's the kind of change we can believe in. Obama is firmly committed to changing his message to whatever will win him the most votes with a particular audience at a particular time.

(h/t Memeorandum)

UPDATE: Obama in Rhode Island, back on the campaign trail:

"Real change isn't about changing your position to fit the politics of the
moment. And that's the choice in this election,"

Talk about the pot calling the kettle....er....sorry, can't use that one with Obama. We'll call it projection.

The doctrine of pre-emptive squandering

Geraghty says “game, set and match to CTV” on the Obama campaign's whisper campaign to the Canadian General Consulate in Chicago.

And as for the Canadian government's response to the rhetoric?

Well.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday the United States should not reopen talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement as the two U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls have proposed.

Harper warned that renewed talks would give Canada the chance to renegotiate the pact so that it is more favorable to his country.

"If any American government chose to make the mistake of reopening that we would have some things we would want to talk about as well," Harper said.

Trade minister David Emerson said Wednesday it would be unwise for the U.S. to renegotiate NAFTA because the it has a good deal when it comes to access to Canada's oil.

Emerson noted that Canada is the largest energy supplier to the U.S.

And the Democrats belly-ache about Bush squandering the mythic good will the US had after 9/11?

Child’s play.

Obama can pre-squander good will with our next door neighbors, even if he doesn’t mean it.

UPDATE: The squander line is used by Obama himself, here:

In the fall of 2002, those deaf ears were in Washington. They belonged to a President who didn't tell the whole truth to the American people; who disdained diplomacy and bullied allies; and who squandered our unity and the support of the world after 9/11.

What would Obama on the campaign trail call the Obama campaign?

With the obligatory nod to the denials coming from both the Obama campaign and the Canadians, we tackle the easy question regarding the alleged events that the Canadian television station still stands by...

What would Obama on the campaign trail call the Obama campaign?

Obama on the campaign trail:

And in this mission, our rivals won't be one another, and I would assert it won't even be the other party. It's going to be cynicism that we're fighting against.

…

Too often, this cynicism makes us afraid to say what we believe. It makes us fearful. We don't trust the truth.

It's caused our politics to become small and timid, calculating and cautious. We spend all our time thinking about tactics and maneuvers, knowing that if we spoke the truth, we address the issues with boldness, that we might be labeled -- it might lead to our defeat.

Obama campaign allegedly working the back channels:

Barack has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers’ jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States , and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

What would Obama on the campaign trail call the Obama campaign?

Cynical.

Go Ahead and Call Me a Cynic

Senator Barack Obama has arguably set a new height for inspiring rhetoric on the campaign trail. He has consistently called for an end to the status quo in Washington. He has fervently called on people to replace cynicism with hope. He has ardently stated his goal of bringing “change we can believe in” to the White House as President if he is elected in November.

His time in the Senate, however, should give one pause on not only his ability to make such a sweeping change happen but his willingness to attempt to do so.

In this story in USA Today we learn of Obama’s work to secure tax breaks for a pharmaceutical company that operates in Illinois, while accepting donations from attorneys at the law firm representing it (though not the lobbyists themselves at that firm). The actions taken by Senator Obama are not unusual nor illegal. However, neither are they representative of someone who is on a mission of bringing change to Washington nor of someone wanting to end the influence of lobbyists and special interests there.

We will weave this story, which we will refer to as “Obama in the Senate” with statements Obama has made on the campaign trail.

Senator Barack Obama on the campaign trail:

Over a century later, America needs this kind of leadership more than ever. We need a President who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American. That's what this country has always been about, and that's the kind of President I intend to be.

Obama on the campaign trail:

“I am extremely proud of amount of money our campaign has raised, but I’m even more proud of how we did it,” Obama said. “We didn’t take a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest group because if we’re going to truly change the way Washington works, we need to break the stranglehold that the lobbyists and special interests have on our democracy.”

Obama in the Senate:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has accepted $54,350 from members of a law firm that in 2006 lobbied him to introduce a tax provision for a Japanese drug company with operations in Illinois, according to public records and interviews. The government estimates the provision, which became law in December 2006, will cost the treasury $800,000.

Obama on the campaign trail:

And as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what's filled the void. The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we're here today to take it back. The time for that politics is over. It's time to turn the page.

Obama in the Senate:

In May 2006, after the finance committee invited senators to put forward tariff suspension proposals, Obama introduced a bill requested by Astellas Pharma, which was seeking a break on an ingredient it imports from Switzerland.

Astellas employed two lobbyists with the Chicago firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman, Senate records show. Another Katten lawyer had helped the senator set up a blind trust in 2005, campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

The two lobbyists have not contributed to Obama. But their law partners and associates at Katten gave $77,000 to his campaigns since 1999, according to the non-partisan CQ Moneyline.

Obama on the campaign trail:

When big business doesn't like something in the tax code, they can hire a lobbyist to get it changed, but most working people can't afford a high-priced lobbyist. Instead of honoring that core American value - opportunity for all - we've had a system in Washington where our laws and regulations have carved out opportunities for the few.

Obama in the Senate:

At issue is a little-known congressional practice of suspending import taxes on specific products at the request of companies. Typically, Congress passes a tariff bill every two years that includes a variety of such measures.

It's legal and common for members of Congress to accept campaign money from people who have benefited from their actions. Nonetheless, both Democrats [Obama and Clinton] have promised to reduce the influence of corporate interests in Washington, even as they have each raised more than $130 million.

Obama on the campaign trail:

The American people have spoken out, and they are saying we need to move in a new direction... Are you really ready for change? Because if you are ready for change, then we can go ahead and tell the lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda are over.

Obama in the Senate:

Mark Zolno, a Katten partner who represents Astellas, said in a statement that the tariff suspension was a routine matter that arose long before Obama decided to run for president.

So as a Senator, Obama legislates out of cynicism in the same way as everyone else, in the same manner as has long been practiced. He allows lobbyists and special interests to secure tax breaks for big business. But as a Presidential candidate he campaigns on the end of such practices and the promise of hope and change.

If sworn in as President and no longer under the burden of campaigning for the office, which way would President Obama operate?

Obama on the campaign trail:

But we also know that at this moment the cynics can no longer say our hope is false.

It is not without evidence that such a charge is leveled, Senator. It is not without justification that many of us find ourselves very cynical about your message of change – about both your ability and your intent to make the change you promise where it conflicts with your self-interest.

The change you are promising to bring, Senator, is simply not something we can believe in. Not when it is premised on you being the one to deliver it.

Go ahead and call me a cynic -- I deserve it. But so too have you earned my cynicism.